Coverage of the Arizona Primary Caucuses for Republican and Democrats; Primary Caucuses in Utah for Democrats. Aired 11p-12mn ET

Aired March 22, 2016 - 23:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[23:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Tonight, Hillary Clinton hopes to run up the scoreboard and widen her delegate lead, while Bernie Sanders is hoping he will have a better night tonight, more luck out west with the caucuses in Utah and Idaho.

I want to go to CNN's Sara Murray. She is covering Donald Trump. She's in (INAUDIBLE) Florida for us tonight. What is the latest? What are you hearing, Sara?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: That's right, Wolf. One of the states tonight, Utah, we already know what is going to be an unfriendly state for Donald Trump. And that was before the anti-Trump super PAC decided to pile on. Source familiar with their effort said they have spent half a million dollars just since Friday hammering Donald Trump in that state. They have been up on the airwaves on radio and on television with ad Mitt Romney slamming Donald Trump. They have even used the Romney campaign's old voter file to target voters via email, via phone, who might be receptive of this message of Mitt Romney slamming Donald Trump. And they learned a valuable lesson after they spent all this money in Florida and were unable to defeat Trump. The source tells me you have to pick your states carefully. And that is why they decided to go heavy in this investing Utah, an entirely ship Arizona. They said they felt like Trump was so far ahead in the banked early vote, they were just going to be no way to defeat him there -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Sara, thanks very much.

I want to take you with Brianna Keilar. He is covering Hillary Clinton's campaign. She is off in Seattle, Washington for us right now. What's going on there, Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there is a huge crown here in Rainer Beach high school including thousands of people who are still sort of wrapped around the high school. There was a very big line here of obviously that would be a very welcome site for Hillary Clinton when she does arrive here. We are expecting her and her remarks, which we are told should take place in about an hour, to mention the Brussels attack. She did earlier today say that this is an example of why strong, smart and steady leadership is needed. And she took aim at Donald Trump saying that some of her opponents want to build walls, to shut the world out and she said you can't build a world that's big enough to shut out the internet. This isn't the age of which we are really talking about building walls. She said she needs everyone on the front lines, including Muslim- Americans.

This is a place where she and her campaign think that she can really show some strength in talking about foreign policy. They think it's a place where Bernie Sanders cannot match her, although he may give her a run for her money tonight, Wolf. Her campaign convinced or resigned to the fact that she may lose Utah and Idaho, hoping she pulls out a win in Arizona.

BLITZER: All right, Brianna. We are going to get back to you.

I want to go over to John King at the magic wall.

Arizona, John, that is a critical contest tonight, winner take all for the Republicans, if Donald Trump wins that, he is going to be well on his way.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: If he wins, he gets 60. This is 98 delegates tonight, 58 of them here in Arizona. Donald Trump, he stole 58. He at least knows he's got six in ten of the delegates tonight going forward.

We are waiting for the votes. We expect it after the top of the hour, we might start to get some of the volt count in. We know there are long lines. We know there are some complaints. And apparently they cut back the number of voting sites this year in the state. So we will wait to see if this fills in.

As always, you are looking Maricopa County where Phoenix is. Only 60 percent of the state population. So if you win big here, you give yourself a big head start. It is the biggest place to look in the state.

Let's go back in time and just look. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney won every county. It's all Romney red four years ago. But he only won the primary with 47 percent of the vote. Santorum at 27. Speaker Gingrich at 16. But Romney won them all.

I forgot about this. When you go back to John McCain in 2008, his home state, he didn't get 50 percent either. He got 47 percent. And you see Mitt Romney doing well at these rural counties in the eastern part of the state. So we will watch it as it fills in tonight on the Republican side.

Let's just take a peek at the Democratic race back in 2008. If you come in here, Hillary Clinton won Arizona with 50 percent. So she knows the state. She has a track history there. You see, flagstaff, Sedona, this was then Senator Obama's area. This was where Bernie Sanders was last night in the Flagstaff here. He thinks this is the way to get a level base. But he also spent some time down here in Pima County along the borders as well, trying to get some votes both Democratic candidates going even to the left of President Obama on the immigration issue, trying to win the Democratic vote in Arizona.

Obviously, the Republican vote has a very different view on immigration. You had Trump and Cruz competing for that promising to be much tougher than in current administration. I just want to show quickly, just go back to 2014, these are the house

districts. I just want to show you the state. You do have the Democratic districts in this part of the state, more conservative part in this part of the state. So we will just see watch turnout tonight. We know how the state plays out. But as we wait for the first results to come in, this is -- if Ted Cruz can surprise Donald Trump in Arizona tonight, that would be planting a flag for the stop Trump movement and for Ted Cruz who for all the talk about being the leading alternative, that he is certainly second in the delegate chase. It's been a while for a win. And Ted Cruz's people early last Tuesday were telling his people he thought they were going to get Missouri. They thought they were going to get North Carolina. They came up just short in both. Arizona will be a statement for Cruz if he get it. But Trump thinks this will be his card in just an hour.

[23:05:01] BLITZER: And we should be getting results, a lot of results coming in momentarily, Arizona. The polls are close there.

How important is a win for Ted Cruz tonight? To John's point, not just whether it is Arizona, certainly Utah, where if anywhere, it's mostly likely to be Utah.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. You know, this whole primary we have been - at least I have been trying to find pockets where Donald Trump can't win. And he surprised us all, right? It was supposed to be he can't win evangelicals, and he can't win women. At least in the primary, he has been able to do that.

The last holdout is the Mormon vote. And I don't think he's going to do well in Utah. If Ted Cruz can't prove that this voting block is his, I'm not sure how good the rest of the map looks for him. And let's not forget, the Mormon corridor goes through Mesa, Arizona too. There is a huge Mormon population, almost half a million Mormons in Arizona. Not significantly enough nationally, but significant enough that Ted Cruz could play in Arizona. The fight there is going to be between the border folks, right, the Jan Brewers of Arizona and maybe the, you know, the Ted Cruz Mormon vote.

COOPER: Although, I mean, you know, for border issues, both Cruz and Trump have made that a priority. I mean, Donald Trump claims credit for introducing the conversation. You can argue whether or not that is the case --

CUPP: But they have got different kinds of endorsements, right. They have got, you know, Trump has got Arpiao and Jan Brewer in Arizona. Ted Cruz has Matt Salmon, congressman from Arizona. A little different in tone.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Arizona really shows how the two parties have divided so profoundly on this issue. You know, back in 2008, John McCain and Barack Obama had pretty much the same position on immigration. Immigration was not such a partisan dividing issue among the parties. What you are seeing now is that both parties have gone way to their extremes. The Democrats are running against any deportation, right, running to Obama's left and Donald Trump is running around with Joe Arpaio. The problem is demographically, this is death of the Republican Party, right.

You can continue getting a lot of votes of older retirees in Arizona, but as the party digs itself in a deeper and deeper holes among Latinos. There's a lot of evidence that Latinos are becoming a more and more politically cohesive group. They are identifying more and more as a group under attack and they are starting to look more like African-Americans in their political voting behavior. And that could last a long time and it is going to be disastrous for the Republican Party.

COOPER: You don't look worried.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, this is - what Peter is referring to is what I refer in that conversation with Van Jones is the culture of race.

COOPER: You know, I got to hold you.

BEINART: It's called the reality of race.

COOPER: Wolf Blitzer has got a key race alert. Let's go to Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. It's our first key race alert of the night for us. The first votes are actually coming in in Arizona, and they come in big time already. Forty one percent of the Democratic primary vote is in in Arizona. Look at this. Hillary Clinton with a very impressive lead, 61.5 percent to Bernie Sanders' 36.1 percent. She has 114,000 votes, Bernie Sanders 67,000 votes. She's got a lead of more than 47,000 votes, 75 delegates, proportionately distributed. At stake in Arizona.

First result coming in. Our first key rate alert. We're watching also the record turnout in Utah. One Democratic caucus site has actually run out of ballots.

Much more of our special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:12:03] BLITZER: All right. The results are coming in. We have a key race alert right now in Arizona. Look at this on the Republican side, 38 percent of the vote is now in. Donald Trump has an impressive lead, 45.4 percent. Ted Cruz at 20.2 percent. John Kasich down there at 10.8 percent. Donald Trump's lead of 60,000 plus. He has 119,000 votes. Ted Cruz right now 53,000. John Kasich, 28,000. Remember, 58 delegates are at stake in Arizona in this Republican presidential primary. It is winner take all. No matter what percentage you get, if you're the winner, you take all those 58 delegates.

A key race alert on the Democratic side right now, Hillary Clinton has an impress of lead over Bernie Sanders, 41 percent of the vote is in. She is at 61.5 percent, 36.1 percent for Bernie Sanders, 47,000-vote advantage right now for Hillary Clinton.

I want to show you what's going on in Phoenix, Arizona, right now. The polls closed almost two hours ago. Look at this long line that's under way right now. People are still waiting to cast their ballots in Phoenix, Arizona right now. Arizona, the biggest prize of the night.

I want to go over to John King over at the magic wall. Almost half of the precincts reporting right now. Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in Arizona. Very impressive lead.

KING: Just got a few more results as you were just giving those data. We only have Maricopa County until a moment ago. We just got a little bit here from the Sedona area. And Hillary Clinton is closer here, 55-48, then you move over here in the west in Mojave County. Out here very rural, small area in the northwest corner of the state. But Hillary Clinton ahead again. Let's pull back in Maricopa County. As we know it is the biggest part of the state. If you win big here, you tend to win statewide. And she is running up a pretty good margin so far. As you noted, we are not sure the percent of the precincts yet here while this is early vote (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: We're told that early vote we're getting nearly half of the vote, mostly absentee, early vote. They have been voting for a couple weeks out there.

KING: Right. And so, they had those votes. They count those votes and they release.

BLITZER: They just dump them all at one point.

KING: Took them a little longer than we thought. But now that we have them, that's a pretty impressive lead for Secretary Clinton to start the night. We will keep counting. We will see what comes in on the voting today. But it is a good way to start tonight. If you want to just come on statewide and take a pick, we will show one more time, 61-36 right there.

On the Republican side just a moment ago, this is all we had in Maricopa County. So let's switch over there. Donald Trump with an early lead. Again, this is the largest county in the state. It's nearly 60 percent of the state population right now. And so, if you look at it right there, 45-20 to 10 percent for Kasich. If it stays like this, Cruz won't have much of a complaint. Cruz has been complaining all week, whatever Kasich gets here it could keep him from beating Donald Trump.

At the moment if you pop out statewide, we take a look. We do have some more votes just came in the same area on the Democratic side. So statewide with 43 percent in, Donald Trump up near 50 - it doesn't matter. But he is up near 50 percent. The winner gets all 58 here no matter what the margin is. Cruz well behind.

At the moment, let's just take a peek at these other counties. Trump, again, these are tiny counties, but he is running it up nearly 65 percent of the vote early out there. You move into the center part of the state, nearly 50 percent of the vote there. You come back statewide and that take a pick at it. It's, Wolf, about 43 percent. It is a pretty -- almost half the vote and Donald Trump has to be happy for the first half of the vote. Not only is he winning, but he is winning by more than 20 points over Senator Cruz. And again, 58 delegates here, 98 at stake tonight, 40 in Utah. Utah, if you need 50 percent for it to be winner take all. Otherwise it's proportional. In Arizona, if you win by one vote, you get them all. Donald Trump with an earlier impressive lead.

[23:15:26] BLITZER: Yes. He is winning by a lot more than one vote right now with almost half of the vote in.

I want to go back to Anderson - Anderson.

COOPER: Right. And certainly, as we were talking about before, I mean, for Ted Cruz who wants to rack up as many delegates as possible, that would be a big loss to not win in Arizona.

LORD: You know, that thing in a macro sense, I have gone back to 1960 and I can't find any nominee, maybe Doug or David can correct me on this, but I can't find any candidate who eventually got this far ahead and was overtaken by someone else, Republican or Democrat. I mean, You know, Gary Hart, for example, gave Walter Mondale fits, but Walter Mondale still won.

COOPER: Anybody else come to mind?

CUPP: On the spot.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: But usually a candidate in this position kind of starts consolidating larger numbers at this point. And I think what you're finding with Trump is that while he is consolidating, it's kind of slower and slower and there's not any kind of rush to support as there would be with a front-runner of his command honestly, you know.

BEINART: It will be interesting to see what happens over the next month. Because we don't have a lot of states voting over the next month. So assuming this is a good night for Donald Trump, there's going to be a lot of time --

DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Wait a minute, I've got to correct you. Look. We don't have a lot left during this March madness, but April is huge.

BEINART: Right. Starting mid-April.

BRAZILE: No. April 5th is Wisconsin, April 19th is what I call the New York primary. But April 26, the end of April. So there are multiple opportunities for Mr. Cruz and Mr. Rubio to cherry pick through the states, but I would say as a Democrat watching my Republicans --

COOPER: You said Rubio. BRAZILE: Oh.

CUPP: He gets that all the time.

BRAZILE: I'm supposed to be somber. I miss Marco Rubio because, you know, he gives a speech when he loses. And so, I'm missing that. But I do believe that they are cherry picking through the rest of these states. Many of them are winner take all. So the advantage is with Mr. Trump, especially if he can win a state like Arizona, which Maris, California, in terms of you all were talking about race and demographics, I stayed out of that conversation because these two other individuals wanted to talk about race. But California is like Arizona. We could see the same results for Donald Trump there.

COOPER: We continue to look at results in Arizona. We'll take a short break. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:21:47] BLITZER: We have got a major projection right now. CNN projects that Donald Trump will win the Republican presidential primary in Arizona. This is critically important. It is winner take all for Donald Trump. He gets all 58 of the delegates in the state of Arizona. Our first major projection of the night. There are four more contests.

I want to go over John King over the magic wall. This is exactly what Donald Trump wanted. He got it. He gets all 58 delegates.

KING: And he is doing it - look. If he wins by one vote, he wins all 58. But he is doing it again in impressive fashion. And Wolf, this is going to again raises questions of the stop Trump movement. They keep saying they are going to get it. They keep saying once we get a smaller field, we going to beat Donald Trump. Ted Cruz last week thought it would be Missouri and North Carolina. This week he said maybe it will be Arizona.

We still have Utah to go tonight. But Donald Trump is now guaranteed -- there's 98 delegates at stake tonight, 58 in Utah. He is now guaranteed 58. So he is guaranteed 60 percent of the delegates tonight. He's on a path now in the remaining 20 contest including --

BLITZER: So what's the delegate count right now where it stance?

KING: He's on a path right now. He on needs 54 percent of the remaining delegates to get there. We have him at 683. If he picks up Missouri, he haven't officially called would Missouri yet. If he picks up Missouri, they are still counting the votes there because it was so close, he would get to 695. If he picks up the extra 12 that go to the winner.

And so, now he's going to get Arizona and he's going to get them all. So now you add 58 more and you have Donald Trump past the 750 mark, assuming the Missouri victory hold, past 750. Look where he is now back here. So Donald Trump, you have Utah tonight, perhaps Utah goes to Ted Cruz.

If Ted Cruz can win it all, will get above 50 percent, he would get 40. But even under this scenario, look how far ahead Donald Trump is. So then we come back, I just want to pick this here. What happens if Donald Trump keeps his momentum in the Midwest? The next contest is in Wisconsin. If Donald Trump wins Wisconsin, he starts to pull it out. Anybody think that Donald Trump is not going to win his home state of New York? That's a bit down the calendar in the month of May? But he could win there. Is Ted Cruz going to beat Donald Trump in Connecticut or in Rhode Island? (INAUDIBLE). So you can see Donald Trump as the calendar move back this way, maybe John Kasich is the competition. But even if you gave John Kasich - there is Donald Trump winning Pennsylvania, if he keeps doing this, Wolf, he starts to pull away here. Even if you give Ted Cruz, if you assume Ted Cruz is strong in the west and you just fill them all in for Ted Cruz, this is a hypothetical scenario. But even if you give Ted Cruz all the west, and you leave in California, if you come back to Trump, at some point you got to stop him in the delegate rich states. Some of these states are proportional. But if Trump keeps winning out here, and he does gets Delaware, and he gets Maryland, and he gets New Jersey, there's Donald Trump out here now. Let's say Indiana, Kasich says he's going to compete there, let's see it to prove it.

Here's where Donald Trump gets over a thousand. Some of these states still proportional. And we could get down to the big state of California, which is I just gave Donald Trump all of California which will put him over the top and winner take all. Let's be careful about that, though, because California have the congressional district system. So you could take other things out. But the point of tonight is if you're going to stop Donald Trump, right now he needs 54 percent on up. If he wins tonight, he needs 52 percent. At some point, Wolf, to stop him you got to beat him.

BLITZER: All 58 delegates going to Donald Trump.

In Arizona, our first major projection, we have another major projection to make right now. CNN projects that Hillary Clinton will win the Arizona Democratic primary, a big win for Hillary Clinton in Arizona right now, 75 delegates are at stake for the Democrats. It's proportional, though. So Bernie Sanders will get some of those delegates. Hillary Clinton won't get them all because it is a huge win for Hillary Clinton in Arizona.

Let's talk about once again with John King. Almost half of the vote is in. She's way ahead right now, 61 percent to 36 percent.

[23:25:24] KING: And again, it's a resounding victory. And the margins matter on the Democratic side. It's not winner take all but if she can keep 60 percent, she gets 60 percent of delegates. The scenario I showed you earlier, we go through again, had her winning 55-45. So her goal tonight is to get a delegate cushion here because she expects Bernie Sanders will win in Idaho and then they will in Utah. That is the expectation. The question is by how much.

So the bonus here for Hillary Clinton is not only does she get a win. So to offset expected two wins by Sanders later tonight but she is getting it by huge margins. So again, both of it comes right here. This is nearly 60 percent of the vote statewide. A lot of early voting. That's why we don't have final precincts here. You just see she is winning by a more than 6-1 margins. Sanders is winning, this is where he was when he joined us for our final five program. He was in Flagstaff. And he is winning there. It is a more liberal area of the state but it is much smaller, population-wise there at the state.

So a very impressive victory for Secretary Clinton. Again, if we come back to the delegate side of the Democrats side. You just switch it over to the Democrats, she starts the night here already. We just add in Arizona for her. She starts to stretch out. The problem for senator Sanders is even if he starts to win these western states -- sorry -- even if he starts to win these western states. She is still getting proportions. So it's very hard to him to catch. This California June 7th would be the big one. If he does, very important that he get Idaho and Utah tonight for the moral victories for momentum. He is expected to win (INAUDIBLE). Let me move this up. He's expected to win Washington State, Hawaii and Alaska on the weekend.

But even show, if she's getting 45 percent in those states, he is narrowing the gap but ever so slightly and then it moves back to she thinks it's her territory out here. So for Sanders, winning will help him raise money. Winning will give him a reasons to end the race. But if she is winning 60/40 here, he needs to win 60/40 in Idaho and Utah or by a bigger margin set of delegates because Arizona has a bigger basket of delegates for him to conquer the map. Momentum is one thing, helps with his message. But to counter the math, which is what matters when you get to the end and you get to the convention, in these smaller states especially, if she's winning 60/40 here, he has to win 60/40 or more to just barely keep pace. Keep her gap and she is at 324 entering the night. It looks like she's going to end the night with a bigger margin than she entered it no matter what happens tonight on Utah.

BLITZER: And that's just the pledge delegates. If you add in super delegates, she has a much more impressive lead.

KING: Right. And as long as she keeps winning in a big states like Arizona, big primary like that, she has 470 super delegates, it is 471 I think. The only thing that will scare them is if she starts losing. If she keeps winning the big states, even if she is losing the smaller ones, the politicians close, the Democrats will stay with her. So if she keeps that, then she's got a huge advantage.

BLITZER: He's only at 27 super delegates right now.

Anderson, the first two projections of the night, good news for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

COOPER: Big wins for them both in the state of Arizona. Perhaps not a huge surprise but nevertheless --

BORGER: Not a huge surprise but a huge win. You know, for Donald Trump, you know, this is 58 delegate, winner take all. He was expected to win this. Cruz was trying to contest it obviously and you can't really understate the importance of this for Donald Trump, particularly when you start looking at the delegate map going forward. I think this evening Cruz is kind of relegated to hoping he gets maybe over 50 percent in Utah so he can take the delegates there.

COOPER: But also for Donald Trump, who has continually said look, I brought immigration into this debate. Again, you can disagree with him or not, to win border state like Arizona.

BORGER: It is huge. And, by the way, for Hillary Clinton I would also say this is a very important win for her because she knows in these smaller caucus states Bernie Sanders is likely to win. But in terms of the math again, we're talking about it, she becomes so formidable as to almost be unbeatable.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Yes. We were talking about the Mormon corridor. There's also a cowboy belt. Ted Cruz won Texas and he won Oklahoma. He is to south west. Here as Arizona. Ted Cruz went down to Douglas, Arizona, talked to border guards, had a lot of people with cowboy hats around him all week and he's come up empty handed in Arizona.

So I think that Ted Cruz is, again, we get back to watching Utah tonight, can he get over that 50 percent threshold? If not, there will be a showdown in Wisconsin between the three and it looks like Donald Trump wins Wisconsin. It seems to me he would be off to the races and Cruz would be toast.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And to that point, I heard from a Cruz source saving that there's a little bit of concern about that now because of the terror attack in Brussels, because what we were talking about at the beginning of the program, that had t has, particularly within the Republican electorate helped Donald Trump, even though Ted Cruz was out there big time, he talked to you, he was all over the place, he had two press conferences today to try to make it his issue and try to be and look and feel like a commander in chief. It stops (ph).

[23:30:24] BRINKLEY: You know, when he didn't act like a commander in chief when Ted Cruz blamed the mayor of New York somehow as being unprepared for terror when Brussels was going on today. I thought that was picking on the mayor of New York at a time when you want to create national unity.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You had not only the mayor of New York coming out but the commissioner of the police department in New York blasting Ted Cruz over his comments.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Remember, in Arizona so much of the voting took place before the Brussels -- the attack in Brussels took place.

And Anderson, your point about immigration, if you look at the television advertising that Donald Trump did in Arizona, he used the same ad that he initially used in Iowa early in this process on immigration, and building the wall and getting Mexico to pay for it and on the Muslim band. That was his television advertising in Arizona because he understood that the very fruits of his labor were to be realized in a state like Arizona.

And on the Democratic side, I know we don't have exit polls tonight to look, but obviously it's a very Hispanic-heavy vote and, again, we are seeing a pattern that we've seen in Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders is that when the population is less white, she tends to do really well. And I think not only is it the big delegate prize, but both of them, the front-runners, have their arguments that the way they've been winning big, they will continue to win big. And that, although the remainder of the night may belong to Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz if it goes as expected, we shouldn't underestimate how big this Arizona prize is for those reasons.

BORGER: And also Arizona is a closed primary. And Bernie Sanders tends not to do so well with Democrats but does very well with independent voters. And what you see in Arizona is Democrats for Hillary Clinton. And that has been consistently a problem of his. It's hard to see how you win the nomination if you can't win Democratic voters if you're a Democrat.

COOPER: Although because of the proportional delegates, it does allow Bernie Sanders to continue, it allows his supporters to say, look, he is racking up delegates and these super delegates as much as people say they're for Clinton, they could change their opinion.

CHALIAN: (INAUDIBLE). No doubt about it. The proportional system continues to allow Bernie Sanders to raise money, make a case that he is still in this fight and it gives him oxygen.

COOPER: And also affect the platform of Hillary Clinton. We've seen Hillary Clinton moving toward a lot of Bernie Sanders positions.

BASH: She has on a lot of issues. Some issues could hurt her in the general election assuming she's the nominee, like guns. Some issues maybe not, if Donald Trump is the nominee, like trade, for example, where, you know, if she's moving so far to the left on trade that she actually could match the populist rhetoric and positions of someone like Donald Trump.

COOPER: We're watching a number of states very closely. Our coverage continues in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:37:15] BLITZER: All right. The Arizona results have been reported and we have made our projection. Donald Trump is the winner in the Arizona Republican primary. He gets all 58 delegates. It's a winner-take-all state, 58 delegates. On the Democratic side in Arizona, Hillary Clinton is the winner there, 75 delegates at stake.

Here is the votes so far with half of the vote in. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has a significant lead, 46.5 percent, 21 percent, 21.1 percent for Cruz, only 10 percent for John Kasich. He has almost 160,000 votes to 72,000 votes for Ted Cruz. That's a lead of 87,000 votes. We projected he's the winner.

Hillary Clinton also with 71 percent of the vote in. She is at 60 percent, Sanders is only 37 percent. Hillary Clinton is the winner in Arizona. Let's go out to listen to Bernie Sanders. He's speaking right now in San Diego, California.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Thank you! Thank you, San Diego! Let me thank all of you -- thank you for coming out tonight and let me thank Rosario Dawson for that extraordinary introduction. It's a little bit hard to follow Rosario because she said everything I was going to say. The only thing she didn't say, I think, is not only do we have 9,000 people in this room, we have many thousands more in the overflow room!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: When we began -- when we began this campaign about ten months ago, we were three percent in the polls, about 70 points behind Secretary Clinton. As of today, last poll that I saw, we are five points behind and we're gaining.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

[23:40:01] SANDERS: When we began this campaign against the most powerful political organization in the country, we had no money and no volunteers, now we have hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over this country. When we began this campaign, we were considered a fringe candidacy. Now, who -- who in America, the media said, could believe in a political revolution?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Well, ten months later we have now won ten primaries and caucuses. And unless I'm very mistaken, we're going to win a couple of more tonight. When we began this campaign, we talked about the need for millions of people to become involved in the political process. Tonight in Utah, tonight in Idaho and tonight in Arizona there are record-breaking turnouts in terms of voters.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Now, this campaign -- this campaign is doing as well as it is generating the kind of energy and excitement we're seeing here in San Diego and all over this country. Because we are doing something very unusual in modern American politics. We are telling the truth. Now, the truth is not always pleasant, not in our personal lives, not in our political lives, but we cannot go forward as a nation unless we are prepared to confront the real issues facing our country.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) SANDERS: And let me tell you briefly what some of those issues are. Number one, number one, in America today we are living under a corrupt campaign finance system, which is undermining American democracy. Democracy is not a complicated process. It really isn't. It means that you have one vote, you have one vote, you have one vote. You want to vote for me? You want to vote against me? That's fine. But what democracy -- what democracy does not mean is that billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money to elect candidates who represent the wealthy and the powerful. That is not democracy.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor what Bernie Sanders is saying to his supporters. He's got a big crowd out there in San Diego. We're also waiting to hear from Hillary Clinton. We'll have coverage from that. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:47:46] BLITZER: All right. Let's get a key race alert right now. In Arizona on the Republicans side, we projected Donald Trump as the winner of the Republican presidential primary. Take a look at this. All 58 delegates were at stake. Winner take all. He gets all 58, 58 percent of the vote is now in. Look at this. He's got almost 100,000-vote advantage over Ted Cruz, 45. 9 percent, Cruz at 21.6 percent, John Kasich in third place with 10.2 percent. An impressive win for Donald Trump in Arizona.

On the Democratic side, also impressive win for Hillary Clinton. We project that she is the winner over Bernie Sanders, 71 percent of the vote is now in. She has almost 200,000 votes. He has 118,000 votes. She's ahead by 75,000-plus votes, 75 delegates are at stake. On the Democratic side, it's proportional. She will get about 60 percent, going to holds up like this, he will get about 30 or 40 percent. Not as many. And he is still hoping two other states will do well in Utah and Idaho.

Let's go to Utah right now. There seems to be some problems on the Democratic side. Kyung Lah is in Salt Lake City for us. What is going on over the, Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they went from plan A to plan B to plan C to now they are in some sort a situation here because of the crushing turnout. This is the ballot box. And what you are looking at here are provisional ballots. Because of the crushing turnout that they had here, they had 5,000 ballots, they ran through those. These are - printing out these provisional ballots on the printer. They haven't been able to verify the people who filled out these provisional ballots are indeed registered voters. They are going to have to do that on the back end, this box. And another box on that corner, Wolf, they are going to be taken to Democratic headquarters and then after they do the count, they then going to verify that all these people in this box are indeed registered voters -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Kyung. We are going to see if they could fix that and resolve that matter. We are standing by for the results of Utah. Kyung Lah in Salt Lake City. Anderson, unfortunately there are some technical problems that seem

developed a huge turnout in Utah causing some problems.

COOPER: And - I mean, because we have seen time and time again. It's an embarrassment, Donna?

BRAZILE: After the 2012 election, President Obama convened a bipartisan election administration that said we have to clean up our electoral system. We have to ensure we don't have long lines. We have to make sure that we have ballots for people. All of these recommendations and you know what, many of the state and local officials say, you know what, we are not going to do it. It didn't come in any money. And therefore, these states and some of these caucuses, as you well know, these are (INAUDIBLE). So you cannot just blame the election administration. You also have to look at the political parties. And I'm embarrassed by this.

[23:50:26] LORD: Would you think in this particular year when by this point we certainly know that people are turning out that the next states in line would take steps to --

COOPER: Yes. I mean, is it organize that they could be that responsive? That they see what happened the prior week and send out --?

BRAZILE: You would assume we had 20,000 people show up in 2000 in Idaho. I don't know what the turnout was in Utah. But still, you would think that these election officials and party officials would prepare for long turnout. You've had many main caucuses, Iowa. I mean, you have many of these states run out of ballots over the last couple of weeks. They should have been prepared.

LORD: Kinkos is getting lots of --

AMANDA CARPENTER, FORMER CRUZ COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I mean, the thing that's sad to me is this is viewed as a problem. It's like, oh, look at the long lines. We are going to have to wait. This is an amazing thing that's so much engagement and excitement. People are watching this. They are engage in the debate. There should be so much enthusiasm to prepare for this, to make it an event. And instead, it is like everybody is wringing their hands. I mean, this is the most amazing election so far. Let's celebrate it.

BEINART: I mean, it is also just worth nothing how anachronistic this was compare to the rest of the way Americans do their business almost anything else. Fax machines, they are trying to find printers. I mean, I understand that there - that you know, going to an electronic system is, you know, is very tricky in a lot of ways but we do a little of our banking now, right. We trust our money too basically with a click of the button. So, if we do that, you think we should move in that direction.

COOPER: Amanda, since you just joined us, what do you make - I mean, for Donald Trump, obviously, a huge win in Arizona. You used to work for Senator Ted Cruz. Are you depressed about that?

CARPENTER: Well, I think most people expected him to do well in Arizona. I'm really -curious -

COOPER: Expected Trump to do well?

CARPENTER: Yes, yes. Final results to beat. There's a big issue with early voting. You know, we have people turning out the day of but so many ballots are turned in early. People are voting for Marco Rubio who dropped out of the race. I'm very curious to see how those numbers affected the final polls. But we will have to see how Cruz does in Utah. I mean, everyone is looking for him to clear that 50 percent number. And then going forward, we will how --?

COOPER: But it is a huge margin in Arizona for Donald Trump.

CARPENTER: Yes. Without a doubt. And it seems like a protests, the people who have gone out and protested against Donald Trump, has almost galvanized people to support him. They were shock over the protester who are doing. And sometimes it has a boomerang effect where people want to go get behind Trump and say we are against them. We are standing with him in solidarity.

COOPER: Just about everything that everybody has tried to do to defeat Donald Trump in one way or another has back fired.

LORD: This reminds me of the cartoon character Wiley E. Coyote going after the Road Runner. And he gets these elaborate plans we're going do it here, we are going to do it here and it never happens. And it back fires.

BEINART: But it is important to remember, Arizona is a big immigration backlash state, right. It is the state that passed the harshest, some of the harshest anti-immigration laws, who has endorsed Donald Trump. So yes, Trump is doing very well across the board. There is no question about it. But Donald Trump tends to do well in states with large percentages of racial minorities. Not because the racial minorities vote for him, because the whites in-state with large percentage of racial minorities vote for him. And Arizona is a textbook state of that.

BORGER: But it's a close primary also. And you know, close primaries, I mean, he did win in Louisiana. But he, you know, he tends to also appeal to sort of a broader spectrum. We talk about Reagan Democrats and all. And you know, this is a Republican primary. Yes, it's Arizona, yes, the appeal of Donald Trump began with immigration, but I wouldn't downplay the importance of him winning Arizona by an overwhelming margin either. I know you need one vote to take winner take all. But Ted Cruz can try and blame it on John Kasich to a degree, can try and blame it on Marco Rubio's early votes, et cetera, et cetera --

COOPER: But right now, even if you are in Arizona, I mean, not all the votes are in, if you combine Cruz and Kasich, it still doesn't match Trump.

BORGER: Exactly. In the end this probably will turn out to be an overwhelming victory for Trump. BRINKLEY: Yes. And I think the headline is Cruz trounced in Arizona.

And if he doesn't do well here tonight in Utah, they can't keep moving the goalpost. Well, wait until Washington. Well, wait until Wisconsin. This isn't by a couple points tonight. This is a massive Donald Trump victory in Arizona.

COOPER: And he gets all the delegates.

BASH: Right. Exactly. That's the point. That is true that he can, you know, you shouldn't keep moving the goalpost but he can because what difference does it make? He's not going to go anywhere unless he truly runs out of money, which is kind of hard to see, though anything is possible. He's just going to keep going because why not? Why not go until it is -- as with John Kasich but for Cruz, who is closer in the delegate count, he'll siphon his way as many delegates as he possibly can.

BRINKLEY: He'll siphon donors' money, too.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defeat Donald Trump over and support other candidates throughout the whole course of this election.

We're awaiting a speech by Hillary Clinton. We'll bring that to you and awaiting, of course, results, watching Utah very closely.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:59:44] BLITZER: I'm Wolf Blitzer in the CNN election center. We're covering the elections out west. Western Tuesday. Hillary Clinton just took the stage right now. She just scored a big win in Arizona. Donald Trump also got a consequential win in that state. He will add all of Arizona's delegates to his tally putting an even more distance between himself and Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

We are also standing by for the result of three other contest in Idaho where Democrats are caucusing tonight. And in Utah, where both Democrats and --